~ politics for the people

A lesson learned: Tories have been spouting nonsense about grammar schools

Stretford grammar school in Greater Manchester [Image: Christopher Thomond for the Guardian].

The lesson is for us, of course; not them.

It seems Conservatives are fixed in their ways and really cannot learn anything new or understand facts that contradict their long-held beliefs.

So nobody will be able to convince them that taxes are for everyone, not just the poor; or that healthcare is for everyone, not just the rich.

Or that grammar schools increase the divide between the rich and the poor; they do nothing to increase social mobility.

Has anybody been keeping a record of the Tory MPs who have been spouting Theresa May’s claptrap for her (I bet they learned it by rote, too)?

These people are mean and they are stupid. If you are one of their constituents then, for the good of the UK, consider it your duty to vote them out before they manage to translate one of their boneheaded ideas into law.

It is vital for the future well-being of the country.

Grammar schools do not improve the exam results of bright students beyond what they would have achieved at a good comprehensive, while more grammars would widen the attainment gap between rich and poor, a study has found.

The analysis of GCSE performance in selective state schools, carried out by the Education Policy Institute, concluded: “We find no evidence to suggest that overall educational standards in England would be improved by creating additional grammar schools.”

Comparing the top 25% of comprehensive schools with the results of existing selective schools, the researchers found “there is no benefit to attending a grammar school for high-attaining pupils” – meaning bright children performed just as well in good comprehensive schools as in grammars.

The report follows the recent campaign by Theresa May to overturn the existing ban on allowing new grammar schools to open. May argued that selecting pupils at the age of 11 would enhance social mobility.

But the EPI report found little to confirm May’s claim that new grammar schools would help children from disadvantaged backgrounds, including those on free school meals (FSM).

Selection can also go beyond the 11+. At the grammar school I attended annual cohorts were streamed after one term by further testing, creating another elite and another majority of pupils labelled inferior. Many of those in the lower streams lost interest and got little of the academic benefit their initial selection had been intended to provide.

The notion of the scheme being part of a drive towards a meritocratic society is, without substantive additional measures to counter inherited or bought privilege (including the end of fee paying education), a fraud.

Theresa May claimed at PMQs that it was attendance at a grammar school that enabled her to become Prime Minister and Jeremy Corbyn become leader of the Labour party. But Jeremy Corbyn only passed two A-levels at grade E, the lowest possible grade available above actual failure. So what is she actually claiming? That simply going to a grammar give you enough of an advantage to lead a political party, even though it turns out after you sit your exams you turn out to be a duffer, or lazy, or both? And conversely that a much more industrious and intelligent student who didn’t go to a grammar but did much better academically exam-wise would be less likely to lead a political party than a below par thicky who happened to have spent a few wasted years at a grammar?

Isn’t that the kind of privilege and prejudice we should be trying to stamp out?